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The intermolecular attractive interactions between solid and liquid are considered. Based on fact that alkali metals, especially cesium, are incompletely wetted by superfluid helium II, here, a wetting-depth function is used to derive not only the limit between wetting and nonwetting but also a critical value between the spreading out indicating superfluidity and the complete wetting denoting the normal state of liquid. Observation of siphon-like transport of water defying gravity along fiber surface suggests the mechanism of the wall climbing and fountain effects of superfluid helium at molecular level, which is in agreement with a wealth of new observations in the past more than 15 years. Yet, this paper compares the validity of the wetting-depth model with the contact-angle method and concept of wetting coefficient. |
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Keywords:wall climbing and fountain effects; superfluid; wetting depth; siphon-like transport of water |
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